Interdicts, faith, Cardinals, and morals

The Catholic Church has its system of laws, under an Apostolic Constitution known as the Code of Canon Law, and while my preference is for a society that is secular,I am not opposed, in principle, to religion, just as I am not opposed to the expression of Catholic principles in politics. Most of all, in the political sphere I do believe that Catholic principles should be understood, even by non-Catholics, so that as Catholics and non-Catholics alike work out a healthy relationship between individual faith and political action, non-Catholics or the secularly-inclined can understand where Catholics are coming from.

Catholicism is a hierarchical religion, and administratively, organized under imperial Roman lines, one of the Pope’s titles being that of Supreme Pontiff (Pontifex Maximus), one of the titles of the emperors of Rome; archbishops and bishops rule of over dioceses, a term borrowed from the administrative setup of the Roman empire. Spiritually, it is organized on both a hierarchical and collegial lines, as bishops are successors of the Apostles, of whom the first among equals was Peter:

As a religion that happens to have a government, the governing power of Catholicism is exercised by the Pope in a political sense (as sovereign of the Vatican City state), and in a spiritual sense, by the Pope together with the bishops. In matters of faith and morals, the Pope is infallible when proclaiming dogma: for example, Pius XII’s proclamation of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin as dogma; infallibility is also granted the hierarchy of the Church when they gather in Ecumenical Council for the same purpose, for example, most recently, Vatican II. Within their dioceses, bishops, too, have the supreme authority when it comes to matters of faith and morals. Much of Canon Law is devoted to maintaining the authority and privileges of hierarchy, and in enumerating both the powers and responsibilities of the governing authorities of Catholicism as well as accompanying grievance mechanisms (appeals, tribunals, punishments and so forth).

The question of Cardinal Vidal’s instructions to the clergy of his diocese, should then be viewed in the context of the Cardinal’s powers as Archbishop of Cebu, the justifications for wielding those powers, and whether they were an abuse or within his authority to order; and its implications for Catholics.

Because of the cultivation of the episcopacy by the administration (an unprecedented religious affairs office, with presidential assistants ministering to the needs of the hierarchy), a partisan and not just political dimension has emerged in the goings-on among the hierarchy. See God and Gloria in the Asia Times:

That’s in part because Arroyo has deftly played the religion card. The Philippines is a predominantly Catholic country and senior bishops have in the past flexed their moral authority to affect political outcomes, including elections and crucial laws and legislation.
But a series of controversial incidents, many involving financial links to Arroyo’s administration, has called the clergy’s own legitimacy into question. Nueva Vizcaya Bishop Ramon Villena recently admitted in a newspaper report that the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO), the lottery run by the Office of the President, had given him 1.6 million pesos (US$39,000) to build a hospital for the poor in his home province. However, the total assistance given to Villena’s province, according to the report, was 3.2 million pesos.
The report also showed that the Catholic Church-run Radio Veritas received more than 2 million pesos in ad placements from the PCSO, which while not necessarily a new development, represented a huge increase in the amount of government funds doled out for similar initiatives in the past.
“That gifts or money would blind the eyes of bishops and seal their lips to gross corruption when solidly proven would be a tragic contradiction to their experience as pastors at Edsa I and Edsa II,” said Cotabato Archbishop Orlando Quevedo, a former CBCP president, referring to the clergy’s participation in past people’s power movements which overthrew corrupt governments.
The CBCP’s current president, Lagdameo, while quiet on previous scandals involving Arroyo and despite the issuance of carefully worded joint CBCP statements, has personally attacked the embattled premier since the ZTE scandal broke out. Two of his statements called on the people to engage in “communal action” and get involved in a “brand new people power”, which was interpreted by many as calling for a new people’s power movement. Lagdameo’s statements were strongly criticized by pro-Arroyo bishops.
Before Lagdameo took the CBCP’s helm, its previous leader, Fernando Capalla, was a personal friend to Arroyo. Church insiders say that Capalla, who also sat as one of the government’s peace negotiators in talks with Muslim secessionists, was frequently escorted by presidential guards from the airport whenever he flew into Manila.
It was thus notable, some say, that during Capalla’s tenure when explosive vote-rigging charges against Arroyo broke that the bishops did not support calls for her resignation or impeachment. When a government agent who claimed responsibility for wiretapping a conversation between Arroyo and a senior election official in 2004 in which the two appear to have predetermined vote counts for various constituencies across the country took refuge at a Manila seminary, Cardinal Gaudencio Rosales ordered that he be turned over to the military.
Rosales, who is a relative to one of Arroyo’s closest aides, has admitted in press interviews that he has received a 1 million peso donation from the Presidential Palace for his various livelihood projects targeting Manila’s poor populations. As successor to the incorruptible Cardinal Sin, many Filipinos have looked on Rosales to be a strong voice against government abuse.
Cebu Archbishop Ricardo Cardinal Vidal, who was the CBCP’s president when the clergy called for a civil disobedience campaign after Marcos rigged the results of 1986 snap elections against Corazon Aquino, has likewise shot down calls for the clergy to endorse Arroyo’s resignation. Despite his key role in orchestrating Marcos’ ouster, the senior clergyman has said a declaration against Arroyo is beyond the clergy’s authority and should be left to the political opposition.

But in an interview with reporters yesterday, Cardinal Vidal narrated that he went to Tagaytay from a meeting in Rome. He then came home to Cebu but had to go again to Manila the following day to officiate at the marriage of “a big benefactor” of the Alliance of Two Hearts Parish.

“It just so happened that I was there. The house (I stayed in) is overlooking Wack-Wack. There’s a balcony there. While waiting for a (fellow archbishop) to join me for a mass, I was there (on the balcony). From afar, I could be seen easily but I did not notice them (the First Couple). Beyond the fence, there is a road and it seems that she (Arroyo) saw me but I didn’t see her,” said Vidal.

He added that President Arroyo, who was golfing with her husband, called the house and told him that she would be passing by to say hello.

“Imagine, the President of the Philippines visiting me. But I didn’t give her any spiritual advice. It was not the proper time to do so. She (President Arroyo) did not stay long. It was not a business meeting. Otherwise, I would not say anything about it,” the archbishop explained.

However, he did manage to grab the opportunity to tell the President about the plight of public school teachers, for fear that he might forget to do so in the future.

“I told her that I remembered she once asked me for some programs for the poor. (I told her) to please help our teachers and their transactions with the Government Service Insurance System. Do something about it so that our teachers will not be forced to moonlight. She promised she will check on it. According to her, there are half a million teachers from all over the country. Help them because they are among the poor employees of the government,” Cardinal Vidal said.

He added that cardinals also passed by Malacañang and when asked what they talked about, “We just said hi, hello and goodbye.”

The “hi, hello and goodbye” in what some prelates how come to call “The Diocese of Malacañang,” didn’t amuse bloggers like The Mount Balatucan Monitor:

First, Cardinal Vidal prohibit the priest in his diocese to join in a signature campaign by the Dilaab Foundation in search for truth. Second, after a concelebrated mass, Cardinal Vidal said Lozada is no hero. “Why do we have to make him a hero?” he said in an interview with reporters. Third, the priest who is supposed to celebrate a mass for truth for Jun Lozada in Cebu today backed out. According to Sr. Estrella Castalone, executive secretary of the Association of Major Religious Superiors (AMRSP), “the priest has received orders not to celebrate the Mass, so we had to resort to an interfaith prayer.” Now who ordered the priest to back out? Who is the highest Catholic Church official in the Archdiocese of Cebu where the buck would stop?

In contrast, Cardinal Vidal allowed Presidential Management Staff Chief Cerge Remonde to attend the recollection of the priest in his diocese. He even allowed Cerge to discuss the NBN/ZTE controversy during the recollection and distribute a primer on the issue. Recently, Cardinal Vidal was reported to have met with the First Couple in Wack Wack early this month…

Which brings us to the point of whether the Cardinal Archbishop of Cebu, from a Catholic point of view, was using his powers in a proper way, for the good of his flock.

Ostensibly, the concern of bishops is that the Mass is being used for partisan political purposes. A Philippine Star report puts it this way:

Speaking over Catholic Church-run Radyo Veritas, Archbishop of Nueva Caceres Leonardo Legaspi said he had prohibited priests in his archdiocese from allowing churches to be used as venue for political discussions.

“I don’t have a problem if they want to stage a rally since it’s the right of every Catholic to express his or her chosen political decision,” he said.

“What I don’t want is for Masses to be used for that. I also don’t allow that here.”

Legaspi said he had issued the order to priests in the Archdiocese of Nueva Caceres so they would not allow themselves to be used in political rallies.

“For me, they should not use Masses to attract crowds for their cause,” he said.

“Masses are not meant for that. You are degrading the solemnity of Masses. It’s really painful to see the Mass, priests and nuns, and even bishops being used for that.”

Legaspi said Church law prohibits the use of the Mass to attract crowds in advancing political interests.

“The level of politics is way below the reason for holding Mass,” he said. “If you allow Mass to be used in politicking, you degrade its value and solemnity.”

Legaspi said he has the prerogative to impose disciplinary action on priests and nuns who would violate his order.

“That is the prerogative of the bishop since he is the pastor of the faithful in his diocese,” he said.

As Archbishop Leonardo Legaspi goes, so goes Cardinal Archbishop Vidal: they are concerned over the “politicizing” of the Mass, and don’t shrink from exercising their pastoral authority (see Lozada runs into trouble with Catholic prelates). Except that while the worst that can be said of Legaspi is that his insistence on awaiting the truth will be an eternal one, Vidal’s non-partisanship is seriously in doubt. And there is the corresponding example of (not my favorite prelate, either)Gaudencio Cardinal Rosales, who lets priests say mass for the President, her family and the Lakas-Kampi coalition, and for anyone else on the other side of the political divide. The Catholic hierarchy prefers to be nebulous rather than risk being active political players (see Patricio P. Diaz’s summary of episcopal opinions). By so doing, as Amando Doronila points out, the hierarchy makes itself vulnerable to divide-and-conquer tactics:

The lack of solidarity in the hierarchy and an authoritative direction from the highest ecclesiastical leadership, represented by the Archbishop of Manila, Cardinal Rosales, on the question of whether to support street campaigns to remove the President has allowed the government to deepen the divisions in the hierarchy to play the opposing tendencies against one another and has caused administration critics to charge the hierarchy with being soft on the government, with its series of pastoral letters straddling the fence on what political action to take on the issues raised by the corruption scandals.

But with regards to the individual decisions of individual prelates, in denying permission for Masses for Lozada, have they then imposed spiritual sanctions on Lozada and his supporters?

Under its provisions, the Church first of all, states it has the right to punish members of the faith who commit violations of the principles of the Church. The list of offenses is meant to serve as a deterrent to breaches of faith,and corresponding penalties for offenses as well as their remedies, to bring back erring members of the flock back into the fold.

In general, a penalty is not binding until someone actually commits a crime under Canon Law; but it is binding the moment the crime is committed, regardless of whether anyone witnesses it or states that a violation has taken place. At the same time, the Code of Canon Law is replete with exhortations to those holding authority not to be too free and easy about handing down penalties, and lists many exceptions to the rules, or what we would call mitigating circumstances that ought to be taken into account in determining the committing of crimes and corresponding punishments.

The gravest punishment under Canon Law, is excommunication, followed by interdict. An excommunication forbids the sacraments to a Catholic; an interdict can apply both to an individual or a group of Catholics.

When Nun questions priests’ refusal to celebrate Mass for Lozada, a legitimate question was being asked of the authorities. Basically, even if Canon Law isn’t being brought up, the question is whether Lozada has been effectively excommunicated or an interdict imposed on his person or wherever he may be -or when he is within the limits of a particular diocese. And then the question arises whether such sanctions have been imposed in defense of the faith or as a last ditch effort to preserve the authority of prelates whose own clergy and flocks have turned against them or stopped looking to them for guidance in terms of faith and morals.

I can think of one blogger who could give a definitive answer to these questions –Scriptorium– but alas, he is on indefinite leave from blogging. But maybe he’ll take a look at this entry and sort out the real issues from a Catholic point of view.

Let me close by republishing a recent editorial from The Forward, the school newspaper of San Jose Recoletos Cebu (I have been very impressed by these kids, as I’ve mentioned before: see my column, The future’s bright):

Young Moves?Editorial (Edited)FORWARD 2nd Semester 2007-2008 (released March 13)The young are not indifferent. This is the message we can draw from the rallies of some schools in Manila (University of the Philippines, Ateneo de Manila University, De La Salle University, etc.) in the fight against moral bankruptcy of the Philippine government. On this picture, one might ponder:are the actions of the young from Manila or Luzon enough manifestation that they are really hard at work for change?

This is no issue of regionalism but an assessment of whether or not the totality of the new breed of Filipinos has gone a notch more radical. In the EDSA 1, we witnessed (in our history books,etc.) the involvement of the young in Luzon, Visayas, or MIndanao. Notably, it was because of the shocks of the imposition of Martial Law that everyone felt curtailed and pushed to their limits.

Then, Erap’s administration came with excessive corruption and ‘ended’ with the controversial unopened during the impeachment proceeding. The young took in ferreting out the truth and had it exposed in the open.

Here in Cebu and some parts of the Visayas, there were rallies. Mindanao for sure had also echoed their cries. And as expected, EDSA 2 overtook in liberating the country again from the hands of a corrupt president. Among the frontliners in EDSA 2 were the young in Manila.

Now, it is Arroyo’s administration that is emperiled. This latest scandal hounding her administration fits well as a sequel to “Hello Garci”, “fertilizer scam”, “cash gifts” to politicians – episodes that have become box office operas on TV.

Now, public’s attention is focused on the ZTE scandal and the “heroic” end of ZTE NBN deal star witness Rodolfo Noel “Jun” Lozada.

Lozada is well supported by the civil society, religious sectors, youth groups, etc. He was a close friend of former National Economic Development Authority Director General Romulo Neri. Neri, on the other hand, first answered the queries of the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee about the ZTE scandal but the public was dismayed when he invoked Executive Order 164 (requiring “all heads of departments of the Executive Branch of the government” to “secure the consent of the President prior to appearing before House of Congress”).

With the fearless Lozada and the reserved Neri, the country – including the young – calls for a probable people power to know the truth again.

FORWARD wants to passionately reply to the query of PDI columnist Mr. Manuel L. Quezon III through SMS, regarding what the public feels and how it reacts to Lozada’s revelation. But Cebuanos seem to take on the issue in a different way.

So, we say in this piece, that the Cebuanos, particularly the young, respond through freedom of expression make manifest in the campus press, debates, and classroom discussions. But the question is: does it effect change? On the other hand, we ask: does people power really provide us a better change?

Arroyo is a by-product of people power. If she would be ousted by the same force that made her president, the message is clear: people power wields power more than the due process does. Whether this idea is something good or bad, it’s the people who must be able to figure it out.

We say the young Cebuanos’ physical silence may mean two things:they are discerning on what proper actions to take or the choose not to take part at all.

Incidentally, concerning “those who choose not to take part at all”, Thirtysomething v4.3 has an interesting entry on Dante’s Inferno, and the place in Hell reserved for those who profess neutrality “at a time of great moral decision”:

In relation to the subject, I tried to verify it it was indeed Dante who once said that “The hottest places in Hell are reserved for those who in time of moral crisis preserve their neutrality.”

I found out that it was not a direct quote, but rather, the late U.S. President John F. Kennedy’s interpretation of one of the passages of the “Divine Comedy.”

In the Inferno, Dante and his guide Virgil, on their way to Hell, pass by a group of dead souls outside the entrance to Hell. These individuals, when alive, remained neutral at a time of great moral decision. Virgil explains to Dante that these souls cannot enter either Heaven or Hell because they did not choose one side or another.

They are therefore worse than the greatest sinners in Hell because they are repugnant to both God and Satan alike, and have been left to mourn their fate as insignificant beings neither hailed nor cursed in life or death, endlessly travailing below Heaven but outside of Hell.

Returning to Scriptorium, an excellent explanation of the difference between the corruption of the old days and the corruption of today (highlighted in similar terms in the Inquirer editorial Hacenderos). In 1953 when Magsaysay ran for president, his campaign song had the lyrics “no more graft or ten percent, if Magsaysay’s president!” while by 2006, the “acceptable limits” of graft, according to Romulo Neri, was twenty percent. As Scriptorium points out in Why I miss old-fashioned corruption (a Philippine satire), and which reminds readers its satirical but the best satire is built on truth (hence, a non-satirical piece but one full of truths, the supreme apologia of the pragmatic politician, George Washington Plunkitt’s explanation of the difference between Honest Graft and Dishonest Graft):

In the past month, the Philippines has been convulsed again by the scandal over the ZTE-NBN contract. The controversy has pitted the Arroyo Dictatorship against a motley alliance of the idealist intelligentsia and “reformed” sinners, with bishops uncertainly in the middle trying to counsel accountability to the former and moderation to the latter. It’s all somewhat surreal, but I think the controversy merely manifests the presence of a far more massive iceberg beneath.

That iceberg is sometimes called the collapse of public ethics in the Philippines. In some ways related to the concurrent decline of private ethics, it is characterized by the systemic removal of all the controls of decency and propriety that once held corruption in check. However, it’s not my intention here to delve into the higher ethics of the matter, but only into its lower ethical dimension of practicality; for the problem, pragmatically speaking, is the rampant inflation, even the hyperinflation, of the cost of government bribery. In short, to use Friedman’s dangerous generalizations, we are ceasing to be an “Asian-type” crony-state, and are becoming a predatory state on the “African” model.

We see this most starkly when we compare the present with the past, what we might call Contemporary and Historic Philippines.

Historic Philippines was characterized by customary controls on abuse and rapacity. No one begrudged an official the act of skimming a little money off the common weal, since a public servant deserved a little bonus for serving the common good. What’s more, his poorest constituents saw him not only as administrator but as surrogate father, the parens of their many little patriae, and they depended on him to feed their hungry and to pay for their funerals, celebrations, medical treatments, emergencies, housing and whatnot. Woe to the official who did not honor his duties as patron; and since this was a staggering personal obligation for his pocket, it was understood that he would necessarily borrow from the public treasury to thus serve the public need.

What we might now call graft and corruption was, therefore, in those days not merely inevitable, but necessary. It was also honorable, for the dominance of quasi-ethical concepts like amor proprio (personal honor), patronazgo (responsibility to the needy), delicadeza (decorum), and palabra de honor (inviolability of promises) meant that bribery had to be hidden from view, moderate in amount, stable in value, and calculated to not radically prejudice public service. Also, the formal morality that was honored by law and canonized by religion militated against selfish profit, which thus had to be moderated lest it reach scandalous proportions. This was hypocrisy as a fine art; for if it trysted with the occasional corruption, hypocrisy at least honored morality as a revered spouse, and feared social ostracism for its abandonment.

In Contemporary Philippines, on the other hand, the customary controls are lost, and the moderating influence of hypocrisy and hellfire is but a dim memory. When a certain First Lady allegedly demanded 10% for public contracts it was an earthshaking affront to the customary laws; but with today’s breathtaking 100+% kickbacks, society scarcely yawns, and feels content to buy peace by letting the bribing go on till 2010. And this is not a mere phenomenon at the summit; it rears its evil head at every level of social government, even to the barangays that will not renew a permit without compounded gifts. And the opportunities are multiplying, with the grant of massive revenue-making powers to local executives, and nullity for psychological incapacity enacted as a bonanza for judges and prosecutors.

The decay is shocking. Whereas hypocrisy once honored delicadeza by keeping bribes low and quiet, today’s corruption is garapalan, reaching dizzying heights of rates and ostentation. The idealized model of a Magsaysay, who reimbursed the government for meals served to his friends, has been replaced by that of officials serving Petrus to allies and flying their extended families on junkets to Europe; and nobody cares who notices that expensive suites are hired in Las Vegas for Manny Pacquiao’s fights by moderately paid officials and/or their spouses. On lower levels, a judge and his sheriff won’t issue TROs for less than half-a-million; and a mayor in Southern Luzon demands 20% of the gross capitalization of a project before he approves it, the good of his constituents be damned.

Gone too is hypocrisy’s respect for palabra de honor. In the good old days, officials had the decency to stay bribed, and their promises once sold were durable, but today a judge or commissioner will abandon a side in a case at the mere hint of a better offer, and the PBACs of the several agencies are become unreliable. Hence, getting contracts and favorable rulings are increasingly a matter of continuous competitive bidding, forcing the client to pay more for bribe security, which even then is rarely absolute. A member of a powerful commission changes his already sold vote upon getting a brown valise; and a prosecutor who gets a bribe for himself and his boss pockets all the money with nary a care. Such is treachery, such is dishonor!

At least in non-adversarial proceedings like those before the revenue agencies, there remains some stability: the going rate for examiners, collectors, and revenue district officers is fixed by custom, and investors in big contracts can preemptively get favorable Rulings or Orders for a mere P100,000.00. Even there, however, costs are rising, especially in licensing: The average building permit today costs twice what it did merely 10 years ago, and franchises for transport are so expensive that it’s cheaper to just go colorum (illegal) and pay off the policeman. If you’re in Manila, however, pray that it’s a policeman who arrests you: cops are reasonable and will lower their demands if you show good cause, but MMDA enforcers show little mercy, and won’t even honor the time-honored custom of haggling.

Where has decency gone? Some mayors at least still provide exemplary social services, and their old-fashioned corruption is seen as a forgivable continuation of the old ways of patronage, but many executives now treat their constituents not as clients to be cared for but as cash cows to be brutally squeezed. Few still care for the obligations of patronazgo, or for the old partnership of public good and private gain; now the Philippines is becoming an materialist-individualist paradise where religious sanction and social shame mean almost nothing. Hypocrisy for the sake of amor proprio is overthrown; our republic is now the openly rapacious kingdom of sin verguenza.

All this has resulted in a hyperinflation in the corruption market, as demand for bribes outstrips diminishing supply, forcing officials to have recourse to foreign government suppliers. The macroeconomic effects would no doubt be shocking if they are quantified. Foreign direct investment is fleeing to countries with lower corruption rates, where bribes are low enough the escape the half-lidded eye of the FCPA, and the field is left to crony capitalists insulated by their influence from the inflation, and legitimate investors and wage-earners who must bear all of the burden. The cost of business is spiking, and it may soon become so high as to make profit, and therefore salaries to proletariat and salariat alike, impossible.

The bull of the bribe market must therefore be brought under control, for it has indulged its exuberance too irrationally and too long. It is the task of leaders to regulate corruption and temper selfishness, and they must do so by restoring the customary controls. Is it any surprise that the opposition is now led by advocates of the old order of decently decorous corruption, calling on leaders to moderate their greed? A few choice convictions of dispensable allies would be a good start, provided they are not later stoppered with cynical pardons, since they would at least discourage outright pillage, and show that the customary laws are still respected. That would suffice to tell officials: No more! Too much! (I won’t add “Get out!” lest I be accused of sedition.)

But we must act soon. Let the overheated bribe market continue and it will destroy the customary controls entirely: hyperinflation destroyed the general economy of Weimar, and look what that did to the rule of law? Public ethics must be restored to its ancient equilibrium between gain and service, decency and hypocrisy, for if not, then we will see in the Philippines the same events that followed the replacement of the ancien regime and its customary controls with the all-corrupt Directory, or of the Manchus with the Kuomintang: specifically, the rule of military tyrants (as prophesied by Edmund Burke in the case of France). The freedom to bribe must therefore become once again an ordered freedom, lest all freedom be completely lost.

The thing is, I have heard similar views expressed, in all seriousness, by expats who find no difference between the cupidity of Filipino and say, Malaysian or Indonesian, Vietnamese or African officials except the lack of tidiness and predictability when it comes to the Filipino officials (except in Cebu, where the bribery is methodical: everything gets done, but your choice is whether to pay a premium to expedite the processing of licenses, etc., a system such expats hold superior to the rapaciousness and inefficiency they encounter down the line everywhere else, it seems).

Then, the Inquirer editorial today. Trivial pursuits, focuses on the Commission on Appointments and the controversies concerning its rules. As in all things, ever wondered why the phrase, “moderate the greed,” has resonated so much with people from all walks of life?

It’s the cornerstone of our traditional culture: the idea that human vices must, at least, be moderated.

mlq3

151 comments

lighten up. you are only judging based on what you perceive to be the Catholic Church. the pastoral care of the Roman Catholic Church is where you see the difference. if you have not tried to drive down a single nail for a GK house, just try holding back the venom until you have actually pissed blood just so the next house will be built early enough for a family to move in.